The new building allows UB to train more doctors to alleviate physician shortages, achieve breakthroughs in biomedical research and transform health care in Buffalo

The building's open six-story light-filled atrium fosters collegiality and a strong sense of community.

A key educational attribute of the building is its emphasis on active learning classrooms, which contain triangular tables that are fully electronic.

Originally gaslights, these lanterns illuminated the High Street medical school lobby from 1893 until 1953. Credit: Douglas Levere.

“Western New York’s transformation into a national health sciences hub continues to grow as the new Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building opens its doors to the future leaders of 21st century medicine, research and technology.”

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Sixty-four years after moving to the
University at Buffalo’s South Campus, the Jacobs School of
Medicine and Biomedical Sciences has returned to downtown
Buffalo.

The massive $375 million, 628,000-square-foot building
officially opened today at 955 Main St., just steps from where it
was located from 1893 to 1953.

The building was the first to receive NYSUNY 2020 Challenge
Grant funding through NYSUNY 2020, legislation that was signed into
law by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in 2011. The initiative has spurred
economic growth across the state and strengthened the academic
programs of New York’s public universities and colleges. The
mission of the NYSUNY 2020 program is to elevate SUNY as a catalyst
for regional economic development and affordable education.

“Western New York’s transformation into a national
health sciences hub continues to grow as the new Jacobs School of
Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building opens its doors to the
future leaders of 21st century medicine, research and
technology,”Governor Cuomo said. “By
moving this state-of-the-art facility downtown, we strengthen
Buffalo’s economy while helping to ensure the city’s
growth and development continues strong.”

“Moving the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical
Sciences downtown is a major milestone for the University at
Buffalo that has been a decade in the making,” said UB
President Satish K. Tripathi.

“UB is now poised to achieve our vision of excellence in
medical education, research and patient care. We are so indebted to
Governor Cuomo, who shared and supported our vision all along. From
the very beginning, he, along with the Western New York state
delegation, saw the great potential in moving the Jacobs School to
the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and recognized the pivotal role
it could play in the remarkable transformation of our region.
Governor Cuomo advanced our vision by signing the historic New York
SUNY 2020 legislation into law.”

“This defining and transformative moment would also not
have been possible without the incredible support and generosity of
Jeremy Jacobs and his family, for whom the Jacobs School of
Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is named,” Tripathi
added.

“Mr. Jacobs and his family are committed to our vision
because they know that the students we educate here, and the
discoveries and treatments generated here, will save lives and
improve the quality of life for people around the world. Their
belief in our institution has transformed the dream of a
world-class downtown medical school building into a concrete
reality.”

“My family is thrilled to join UB and our elected
officials at today’s ribbon-cutting ceremony,” said
Jeremy M. Jacobs, UB Council chairman, whose family’s
historic $30 million gift was critical to the medical
school’s move downtown. “The new medical school
building fulfills the collaborative and innovative vision of the
medical campus, which will have a transformative impact on health
care in Western New York. By moving the school downtown, UB is
enhancing its role in the fabric of our city and furthering its
commitment to our community.”

Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown noted that the Jacobs School of
Medicine and Biomedical Sciences will bring over 2,000 students,
faculty and staff to the heart of downtown Buffalo. “This is
an incredibly exciting time for the medical community in the City
of Buffalo,” Brown said. “I would like to thank
President Satish Tripathi for his tremendous leadership in making
this project a reality; Jeremy Jacobs, and his family, for their
generosity – not just to UB – but to the entire City of
Buffalo; and Governor Andrew Cuomo for his vision and determination
to put Buffalo on the map as a leader in medical education, care
and research.”

Michael Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences at UB and
dean of the Jacobs School, said today’s opening “marks
a long-awaited reunion for the Jacobs School of Medicine and
Biomedical Sciences.

“It reunites our faculty conducting research, who have
been located on the university’s South Campus, with those
involved in patient care in our partner institutions. This building
fully integrates medical education into Buffalo’s growing
academic health center, emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration
and strengthening our relationships with our clinical partners.

“A medical school that is just steps away from UBMD
Physicians’ Group at Conventus, John R. Oishei
Children’s Hospital, Buffalo General Medical Center, Roswell
Park Cancer Institute and all of our other partners will foster
synergies that will expand and improve health care in Western New
York,” he said.

Addressing the physician shortage and benefiting the
region

The new building allows the Jacobs School to expand its class
size by 25 percent, from 144 to 180 students, training many more
doctors to address local and national physician shortages. This
year, the Jacobs School admitted its first class of 180 students;
by 2021, the school’s enrollment will reach 720 students.

That expansion, in turn, boosts UB’s ability to recruit
and retain world-class faculty with medical expertise in
specialties that the region sorely lacks so that Western New
Yorkers do not have to leave town for specialty care.

The move of the Jacobs School to the Buffalo Niagara Medical
Campus bolsters the city’s biomedical sector as a catalyst
for regional economic development. Medical innovations will result
from increased synergies with the clinical and research partners on
the medical campus, in turn, creating new medical technologies and
spinoff businesses.

Deliberately positioned as a “gateway” to the
medical campus, the building features a pedestrian walkway from
Allen Street and the vibrant Allentown neighborhood to Washington
Street.

The building’s sustainable features include bicycles
available to rent in the walkway and the NFTA Metro station, which
is located under the building, a first for Buffalo, so that the
public can readily access the medical campus from the Allen/Medical
Campus station.

A 32-foot tall, two story light tower at the Main and High
streets entrance functions as the building’s signature
feature, a beacon, often lit in UB blue, but which can beam
virtually any color, which architects intended as emblematic of the
school’s return to its downtown roots. Just upstairs, on the
second floor, in a more concrete nod to the historic past of the
Jacobs School, hangs a pair of lanterns. Originally gaslights, they
illuminated the High Street medical school lobby from 1893 until
1953 when the medical school moved to the UB South Campus on Main
Street. The lanterns were restored by Ewa Stachowiak, assistant
professor in the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences
and Brian Koyn, in the UB health sciences fabrication department
who used a 3-D printer to restore missing and decaying lantern
pieces with exact replicas of the original metalwork.

Active learning

The building design was produced by HOK, a global design,
architecture, engineering and planning firm, which was selected for
the project by UB in 2012 after winning an international
competition to develop the best design concepts for the new Jacobs
School building.

Through its classrooms and open spaces called learning
landscapes, the Jacobs School’s new building promotes
collaborative interactions among faculty and students. Its huge,
open six-story, light-filled atrium, comprising more than 19,000
feet of glass, fosters collegiality and a strong sense of
community.

A key educational attribute of the building is its emphasis on
active learning classrooms, which contain triangular tables that
are fully electronic so that any student, even in a class of 180,
can not only contribute but also present data to the entire group
with the touch of a button.

Small classroom and study spaces are available throughout the
building, all with optimal technology connections.

A casual café is located on the second floor but for
full-service dining options, faculty, staff and students will be
encouraged to patronize local businesses, a deliberate feature of
the building.

State-of-the-art laboratory spaces on the building’s
third, fourth and fifth floors, are modern and light-filled.

The sixth floor includes expanded facilities where students will
hone their skills, from the Behling Simulation Center, where
students will gain interprofessional training using life-like
mannequins in realistic medical scenarios, to the Clinical
Competency Center, where students will interact in scripted
clinical scenarios using standardized patient volunteers.

Students, medical residents and professionals also will have
access to the building’s surgical suites and robotics suites,
where they will be trained in the newest surgical and robotics
skills. In addition to the traditional gross anatomy training using
cadavers, students will have access to visualizations of the
cadavers, providing far more detailed anatomical information.

Historic support and generosity

In addition to the support provided by Gov. Cuomo, the new
building was made possible through state and UB capital
appropriations and support from the UB Foundation, as well as the
generosity of alumni, community leaders, corporations and
foundations who gave to a $200 million campaign for the Jacobs
School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, including a historic
$30 million gift from Jeremy M. Jacobs and family.

In recognition of the Jacobs family gift and Jacobs’
tremendous service and philanthropy to the university, the medical
school in 2015 was named in their honor.